Getting There by Gillian Zoe Segal

Author:Gillian Zoe Segal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2015-02-05T05:00:00+00:00

MARINA’S PEARLS

The success of an artist is generally measured by how much he can sell his work for, especially in America. This is shocking to me. How can you measure people like that? There have been so many artists who were never recognized and didn’t sell anything during their lifetime, but when they died, their work sold for millions. El Greco took a hundred years to be recognized as an artist and his work is sublime. If you don’t sell anything, it doesn’t mean that you are not a good artist. Okay, it could be that you produce bad art—but sometimes it’s because your work is ahead of society. I think that a good work of art has many lives.

In postgraduate school I had a special professor who told me something I will never forget. He said, “If you draw with your right hand and become so skilled that you can even close your eyes and make any kind of drawing, immediately change to the left. Repetition will kill you.” Often, once an artist has achieved a certain level of success and is accepted and recognized by the public, he stops growing. He is afraid to experiment and go in other directions because he could fail.

It is really important for an artist to accept failure and be true to himself. When you experiment, you never know how things will turn out. It could be great or it could be really bad. I certainly don’t like all the art I have created, and I have put on some terrible performances! During them, I remember thinking, Oh, my God, this is such bullshit, but I couldn’t stop because there was an audience and I had obligations. When I was painting, I would sometimes work on one piece for a very long time and it would get worse and worse and worse. But then I would move on to a new painting and, in three minutes, I would be there. What you learn from one failure can be concentrated and transmitted to the next thing you do.

When artists reach a certain status, it’s important for them to open themselves up, to be generous, and to help the younger generation of artists. I, for example, have been teaching for more than twenty-five years, and I have created an organization (which is no longer active) that helped young artists to find galleries and to show at international festivals. I am currently creating an institute for time-based immaterial arts called the Marina Abramović Institute. As part of this, I will also help the artists financially.

It’s important to put the idea of dying in your daily life because it helps you to appreciate your existence on this planet. Death can come at any second and change everything. It can be the death of a loved one or your own. People spend endless time on total insanity, thinking that they will be here forever. Life is temporary. Make every day meaningful and don’t spend time on bullshit.

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